


sleepeth

by TomBowline



Series: Tommy's OWOT2020 fills [2]
Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Lighthouse Keepers, Canon Era, Cuddling & Snuggling, Dreams and Nightmares, M/M, OWOT2020, One Week of Terror, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:20:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27113900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TomBowline/pseuds/TomBowline
Summary: Henry bolted up in bed gasping. He was sweating through his nightshirt despite the frigid air and his heart was thundering, beating out of his chest the way it always did when he remembered - but this was no memory. Or— It was not his own memory, but he thought he knew whose it was.
Relationships: Henry Collins/Harry D. S. Goodsir
Series: Tommy's OWOT2020 fills [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1978441
Comments: 1
Kudos: 20
Collections: One Week of Terror 2020





	sleepeth

**Author's Note:**

> Fill for One Week of Terror day 2: "monster" + "shadow" + "we shouldn't be here".

It is a beautiful day. The sun has peered through the clouds to warm the frosty air of morning, the sea sprays no more than is tolerable, and the first dredging-net has just come up.

It is a beautiful day, and there is something on the deck.

It glistens, blue-black-curious, on the sodden boards. Deliberate and unpracticed step, trying to roll with the waves and compensate for the slick surface as he moves towards it. 

What is it that is on the deck?

It is an octopus, perhaps, or a squid. It is big, first of all, bigger than any he has seen before, stretching across the deck almost ten feet. It shines and pulses in a way nothing else has. It flops about, tentacles scrabbling as it struggles for water to breathe - he does hate to watch this part, but the timing may be important, so he watches. Ten tentacles, he noted, so more likely a squid—

Its eye opens. Yellow and mottled and wide with terror. Staring right at him as it struggles for breath. Drowning. 

It is not a beautiful day. It is a stormy, wretched night. It was predicted to be calm - not a cloud on the horizon - but a storm has come all the same, rising up to meet them as if from the sea itself. His specimens shake and clatter about each other where he has lashed them down in a pallet on the floor, having barely saved several jars from cracking. The squid from this morning is kept in a washtub, the only vessel large enough to hold it; he resists the urge to check on it as if it might somehow be responsible for the storm. What a notion.

Instead he only rubs his nose where his glasses cut into the bridge and rises - makes to head for the galley to chat with the cook, for it is no use trying to sleep and they are the only two not needed (worse than useless, in fact) up on deck in the storm. 

A horrible sound engulfs his world before he can get to the door. A groaning, a sudden splintering - then a shudder that wracks the whole ship, a sickening shift downwards.  _ Sinking _ , he thinks,  _ We are sinking _ . 

The ship seems to come apart beneath him in a matter of minutes, pummeled to pieces like nothing he’s seen before. He is left shivering in a jolly-boat, freezing in layers of sodden wool, totally alone. His eyeglasses are lost, the world transformed into a blur of darkness and stinging wet. He can hear the screams of his fellows - tries to row to them and help them into his boat - but time after time he watches helplessly as sailors with decades of experience are sucked down helplessly into the wrathful waves. Above, still, the sky throws down rain and driving wind, claps of thunder loud enough to drive him deaf.  _ Here _ , he thinks wildly,  _ is nature in her true form, indifferent and dangerous. Here is what I have been playing about with, something that can crush me like a polyp at any time.  _

Then he sees the eye.

It opens beneath him like a hungry mouth, swirling orange and green and angry in the depths. Looming up around it is a shadow, unfathomably huge in size, sickeningly familiar in shape. Mesmerized, he stares back at it, feeling horror build within him to he knows not what end. He gazes into this eye and knows, immediately, what has happened. What he has done. What he has  _ taken _ .  _ Not indifferent _ , he thinks.  _ Vengeful. We - I - should never have been here. _

In his trance he sees not the dark wave sent by a dark tentacle to overturn his boat, hears not the crash as he is buffeted under in a maelstrom of confusion and terror. He only feels, shocking and sudden, that he is falling, down, down into the deep—

Henry bolted up in bed gasping. He was sweating through his nightshirt despite the frigid air and his heart was thundering, beating out of his chest the way it always did when he remembered - but this was no memory. Or— It was not his own memory, but he thought he knew whose it was. He recalled the man he was in the dream, the wiry eyeglasses and walls of creatures in jars. If he had woken from this dream, was the doctor sleepless too? Or was he still caught in a nightmare - a nightmare, perhaps, of Henry’s own past? 

He stared out his little window at the half-cloudy sky with its familiar stars. He longed to go to Harry, to do  _ something _ that would ease the thud in both their chests. To hold him until they both could sleep. But he could not, could not be so familiar, could not say for certain—

A sound, then, a yelp and a crash. Not the wind - it was a calm sea tonight. Henry rose from bed and navigated gingerly out of his little room, not bothering to light a candle but going by touch and half-formed sight. He pushed open the door to Harry’s room, gently to mind how it would creak, and found the good doctor in a heap of blankets on the floor. 

“Harry?” He was thrashing, still, trying to throw off his binding. Henry knelt beside him without a thought, grasped his shoulders and bade him still. “Doctor Goodsir,” he tried again as he lifted the veil of flannel that was blocking Harry’s face. “’Twas a dream, man. You’re well.”

Harry looked at him with lingering horror. “How did you stand it?” Voice high, babbling and breathless. “How did you survive? The flames—”

Henry made no reply but to shake his head and fold Harry into his arms, the pair of them sprawled out in the tiny space between bed and wall. Perhaps they could speak of it in the morning, but— Henry had not the fortitude for it now. Slowly he felt both their breaths slow by the influence of their close-laid chests, and that was enough now. 

At length he felt himself begin to doze. With a sigh, he bundled the doctor up and onto the bed. “Back to bed, I think,” he said gruffly, but as he turned to leave he felt Harry’s arms reach about his waist.

He looked back at Harry to see his soft face twisted in anxiety, eyes still half-asleep. “Will you…”

_ Yes, _ Henry thought as he slipped in next to Harry - half atop him, really - on the narrow bed.  _ Yes, I expect I will. _


End file.
